Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

by Harry Kemelman

  “Good enough.”

  “Now, what are the possibilities by which the handbag could have been left where it was found? It could have been left by the girl or by the man who killed her, or by a third party, unkown, unsuspected, and until now unconsidered.”

  “You got something new up your sleeve, rabbi?” asked Lanigan suspiciously.

  “No, I’m merely considering all the possibilities.”

  There was a knock on the study door and Miriam came in with a tray.

  “I thought you’d like some coffee,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Lanigan. “Aren’t you going to join us?” he said when he noticed there were only two cups on the tray.

  “May I?”

  “Certainly. There’s nothing very confidential about this. The rabbi is just giving me my first lesson in the Talmud.”

  When she returned with a coffee cup, he said, “All right, rabbi, we’ve listed all the people who could have left the handbag. Where does that take us?”

  “Of course the first question that comes to mind is why she had the bag with her at all. I suppose it’s automatic with some women.”

  “A lot of women attach their house key to the inside of the bag by a chain,” suggested Mrs. Small.

  Lanigan nodded to her. “Good guess. That’s how she had her key, attached by a short chain to the ring that’s the zipper-pull for an inside pocket.”

  “So she took the bag rather than go to the trouble of detaching the key,” the rabbi went on. “Now let’s consider one by one the people who could possibly have left it in my car. First, to clear him out of the way, the third party, the unsuspected stranger. He would be someone who happened to be walking along and saw the bag, presumably because it was lying on the ground somewhere near the car. He would certainly open it, if only to find out if there was any identification so he could return it to its proper owner. But, more likely, he would open it out of common curiosity. If he were dishonest, he would have taken whatever of value it contained. But he did not do this.”

  “How do you know that, rabbi?” asked Lanigan, suddenly alert.

  “Because you said you found a heavy gold wedding ring. If the man were dishonest, he would have taken it. That he did not, suggests to me that any other thing of value—money, for instance—was left undisturbed.”

  “There was some money in the purse,” Lanigan admitted. “About what you’d expect, a couple of bills and some loose change.”

  “Very good. So we can assume it is not the case of someone finding the purse, taking out whatever was of value, and then tossing away the bag itself, now valueless, so that it would not be found on him.”

  “All right, where does that get you?”

  “It merely clears the ground. Now suppose he were honest and wanted only to return it to its rightful owner, and he put it in my car because he had found it nearby and assumed it belonged there, or because he thought the driver, finding it in his car, would take the trouble to return it to the rightful party. If that were his sole connection with the bag, why did he put it on the floor in back instead of on the front seat, where the driver would be sure to find it? I could have driven around for days without seeing it.”

  “All right, so a hitherto unsuspected stranger did not leave the bag in the car, neither an honest one nor a dishonest one. I never said one did.”

  “So we’ll go on to the next. We’ll take the girl.”

  “The girl is out. She was dead at the time.”

  “How can you be so sure? It would seem that the most likely explanation for the handbag is that the girl herself left it in the car.”

  “Look here, it was a warm night and you must have had the window of your study open. Right?”

  “Yes. The window was up, but the venetian blinds were down.”

  “How far do you think you were from your car? I’ll tell you. The car was twenty feet away from the building. Your study is on the second floor, say eleven feet above ground level. Add another four feet to give you the height of the windowsill. Now if you remember your high-school geometry, the line from the car to you is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. And if you work it out, you’ll find that the sill was about twenty-five feet away from the car. Add ten feet to give you your position at your desk. That means you were thirty-five feet from the car. And if someone had got into that car, let alone quarreled and got murdered in it, you’d have heard it no matter how engrossed you were in your studies.”

  “But it could have happened after I left the temple,” the rabbi objected.

  Lanigan shook his head. “Not too easily. You said you left sometime after twelve. You figured out it was about twenty past. But Patrolman Norman was walking up Maple Street towards the temple, and about that time or very shortly thereafter he was within sight of the temple. The parking lot was under his observation from that time up to three minutes past one when he pulled the box on the corner. Then he headed down Vine Street, which is the street the Serafinos live on and was therefore the street the girl must have come down.”

  “All right, then after that?” suggested the rabbi.

  Lanigan shook his head again. “Nothing doing. The medical examiner first reported that the girl was killed around one o’clock, with a twenty-minute leeway either side. But that was on the basis of body temperature, rigidity, and so forth. When we questioned Bronstein we discovered they’d eaten after the movie, and that enabled the M.E. to make a determination of the time on the basis of stomach content, which is a good deal more accurate. He gave us a supplementary report that fixes one o’clock at the outside.”

  “Then in that case we have to consider the possibility that in spite of my proximity to the car I was so engrossed that I heard nothing. Remember, the car windows were up, and if they were careful in opening and closing the car door and if they conversed in low tones I wouldn’t have heard them. Also, was way she was killed, by strangulation, would have prevented her from crying out.”

  Lanigan pointed at the rabbi’s head. “What do you call that thing you’re wearing?”

  The rabbi touched his black silk skullcap. “This? A kipoh.”

  “Then forgive me, rabbi,” he said, grinning, “but you’re talking through your kipoh. Why would they be careful about opening and closing the car doors and keeping their voices down to a whisper when they had no reason to assume anyone was within earshot? If they were there before it began to rain, they would have lowered the windows. It was warm, remember. And if it was during the rain, Norman surely would have seen them. What’s more, there was no indication the girl had been in your car. Look here.” He opened his dispatch case and took out some papers, which he spread on the rabbi’s desk, and they all drew near to look. “These are the total contents of your car—a list of what was in every receptacle. Here’s a diagram of the interior of the car showing where each item was found. Here’s where the handbag was found, on the floor under the seat. Here in the plastic trash pocket were lipstick-stained tissues, but it was your wife’s lipstick. On the floor in the rear, right behind the front seats, there was a bobby pin but it was your wife’s. There were a number of cigarette butts in the front ashtray and one in the rear ashtray, and all were lipstick-stained with your wife’s lipstick, and it was the brand she smokes because they’re the same as the partially filled pack we found in the glove compartment.”

  “Just a minute,” said Miriam, “that one in the rear ashtray can’t be mine. I’ve never sat in the back seat since we got the car.”

  “What’s that? Never sat in the back seat? That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” asked the rabbi mildly. “I have never sat in any seat but the driver’s seat. Actually, the back seat has never been used, come to think of it. Since we got the car, less than a year ago, I have never had occasion to transport anyone. When I am in the car, I am in the driver’s seat, and when Miriam comes along she sits beside me. What is so strange about that? How often do you sit in the back seat of your car?”

  “But it
must have got there somehow. The lipstick is your wife’s, the brand of cigarette is hers. Look here, here’s a list of what was in the girl’s handbag. No cigarettes, you notice.”

  The rabbi studied the list. Then he pointed. “But there’s a cigarette lighter, and that would indicate that she smoked. As far as the lipstick goes, you said it was the same brand and shade as Miriam’s. After all, they’re both blondes.”

  “Just a minute,” said Lanigan. “The bobby pin was found in the back of the car, so you must have—”

  Miriam shook her head. “Sitting in the front seat, it would be in the back that the pin would fall.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Lanigan, “but it still doesn’t give us what you’d call a clear picture. She had no cigarettes—at least there were none in her purse, right?”

  “Right, but she was not alone. There was someone with her—the murderer—and he probably had cigarettes.”

  “Are you saying that the girl was murdered in your car, rabbi?”

  “Precisely. The lipstick-stained cigarette in the rear ashtray proves that a woman was in the rear seat of my car. The handbag on the floor in the rear shows that it was Elspeth Bleech.”

  “All right, let’s say she was there. Let’s even grant she was killed in your car. How does that help Bronstein?”

  “I’d say it clears him.”

  “You mean because he had a car of his own?”

  “Yes. Why would he drive into the parking lot with the girl, park alongside my car, and then change cars?”

  “He might have killed her in his own car and then transferred the body to your car.”

  “You’re forgetting the cigarette in the rear ashtray. She was alive in my car.”

  “Suppose he forced her into your car.”

  “For what reason?”

  Lanigan shrugged. “Perhaps to avoid having any signs of struggle in his own car.”

  “You’re not giving that cigarette its full weight as evidence. If she smoked that cigarette in the rear seat of my car, then she was at ease. No one had his hand at her throat—no one was threatening her. For that matter, if after taking off her dress she had to go back to Bronstein’s car for some reason, why would she have put on the raincoat?”

  “Because it was raining, of course.”

  The rabbi shook his head impatiently. “The car was right in front of the house. How far? Fifty feet? She had put on a topcoat to cover her slip, and that certainly was protection enough against the rain for such a short run.”

  Lanigan rose and began to pace the floor. The rabbi watched him, unwilling to interrupt his train of thought. But when he continued silent, the rabbi said, “Bronstein should have come to the police as soon as he found out what happened, admitted. For that matter, he shouldn’t have picked up the girl in the first place. But even if you can’t condone it, it is understandable in the light of the situation at home. And again you can’t condone his withholding information from the police, but you can understand it. Arresting him for questioning, with its attendant publicity, is more than enough punishment, don’t you agree? Chief Lanigan, take my advice and let him go.”

  “But that would leave me without a suspect.”

  “That’s not like you.”

  “What do you mean?” The chief’s face reddened.

  “I can’t imagine you holding a man just so that you can report progress to the press. Besides, it will only hamper your investigation. You’ll find yourself thinking about Bronstein, trying to evolve theories that put him in the picture, checking his past, interpreting whatever new evidence comes up, from the point of view of his possible involvement. And that’s obviously the wrong direction for your investigation to take.”

  “Well …”

  “Don’t you see, you’ve got nothing on him other than his failure to come forward.”

  “But the D.A. is coming down in the morning to question him.”

  “Then tell him he’ll turn up voluntarily. I’ll go bond for him. I’ll guarantee his appearance when you want him.”

  Lanigan picked up his dispatch case. “All right, I’ll let him go.” He went to the door, and with his hand on the knob he paused. “Of course, rabbi, you realize that you haven’t exactly improved your own position.”

  22

  AL BECKER WAS NOT ONE TO FORGET A FAVOR. THE MORNing after his partner was released, he went to see Abe Casson to thank him personally for his good offices in the matter.

  “Yeah, I spoke to the district attorney but I didn’t get far. As I told you, this case is being handled pretty much by the local police, at least so far.”

  “Is that customary?”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. The lines of authority aren’t clearly drawn. The state detectives usually come in on murders. The district attorney in whose county a major crime is committed and whose office will have to prosecute, he’s in on it. Then the local police, because they know local conditions, they have a hand in it. It depends a lot on the character of the local police chief and on the character of the D.A. and what men are available and what special issues are at stake. You take in a big city like Boston, it would be the Boston police who’d be running the show because they have the men and they’re equipped for it. Now down here, the investigation is being run pretty much by Hugh Lanigan. Mel was picked up on his orders and he was released on his orders. And I’ll tell you something else: Lanigan released him as a result of some new angle or some new interpretation of the evidence that the rabbi showed him. That’s not customary, if you like—I mean, a cop giving someone else the credit for some clever detective work—but then Hugh Lanigan is no ordinary cop.”

  Al Becker did not take Abe Casson’s remarks at face value. He did not doubt that the rabbi had spoken to Lanigan about the matter—conceivably, in the course of the conversation, some chance remark of the rabbi’s may have given the police chief a different slant—but he did not believe the rabbi had been able to work out a convincing defense of his friend. Still, he supposed he ought to see the rabbi and thank him.

  Once again, their meeting was not without its awkwardness. Becker came straight to the point. “I understand that you had a lot to do with Mel Bronstein’s being released, rabbi.”

  It would have been easier had the rabbi made the expected modest disclaimer, but instead he said, “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “Well, you know how I feel about Mel. He’s like a kid brother to me. So you can understand how grateful I am. I haven’t exactly been one of your most active supporters—”

  The rabbi smiled. “And now you are somewhat embarrassed. There’s no need to be, Mr. Becker. I’m sure your objection was in no way personal. You feel that I’m not the right man for the position I hold. You have every right to go on feeling that way. I helped your friend as I would help you or anyone else who needed it, just as I’m sure you would in like circumstances.”

  Becker phoned Abe Casson to report on his conversation with the rabbi, ending with, “He’s a hard man to like. I went there to thank him for helping Mel and to more or less apologize for having worked against him on the contract business, and he as much as told me he didn’t need my friendship and didn’t care if I continued to oppose him.”

  “That’s not the impression I got from your story. You know, Al, maybe you’re too smart to understand a man like the rabbi. You’re used to reading between the lines and guessing what people really mean. Has it ever occurred to you that the rabbi might not talk between the lines, that he says pretty much exactly what he means?”

  “Well, I know you and Jake Wasserman and Abe Reich are sold on him. The rabbi can do no wrong as far as you people are concerned, but—”

  “He seems to have done all right for you too, Al.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying that he didn’t do me and Mel a favor, and I’m grateful. But you know very well that Mel would have got off anyway, maybe in another day or two, because they didn’t have a thing on him.”

  “Don’t be so sure. You don’t know ho
w they play the game. In an ordinary case where a man is tried for some ordinary crime—sure, the chances are that if he’s innocent he’ll go free. But in a case of this kind there’s another element. It’s no longer just a case at law. Politics enters into it, and then they’re not so concerned about whether a man is guilty or not. They start thinking in different terms: have we got enough to go before a jury with? If the man is innocent, let his lawyer take care of him and if he doesn’t, it’s just too bad. It becomes a sort of game, like football, with the D.A. on one side and the defendant’s lawyer on the other, and the judge the referee. And the defendant? He’s the football.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And another thing, Al, if you really want to see this in its proper perspective, just ask yourself what happens now? Who’s the chief suspect? I’ll tell you—it’s the rabbi. Now whatever your opinion of the rabbi, you can’t call him stupid. So you can be sure he knows that in getting Bronstein off the hook he was putting himself squarely on. Think about that for a while, Al, and then ask yourself again if the rabbi is such a hard man to like.”

  23

  SUNDAY IT RAINED. THE RAIN HAD STARTED EARLY IN THE morning, and the corridor and classrooms of the Sunday school were pervaded with the smell of wet raincoats and rubbers. Mr. Wasserman and Abe Casson, standing just inside the outer door, stared moodily at the parking lot, watching raindrops bounce against the shiny asphalt.

  “It’s a quarter-past ten, Jacob,” said Casson. “It doesn’t look as though we’re going to have a meeting today.”

  “A little bit of rain, and they’re afraid to go out.”

  They were joined by Al Becker. “Abe Reich and Meyer Goldfarb are here, but I don’t think you’ll be getting many more.”

  “We’ll wait another fifteen minutes,” said Wasserman.

  “If they’re not here now, they won’t be here,” said Casson flatly.

  “Maybe we should make a few telephone calls,” Wasserman suggested.